Honors Experiences
Honors Experiences
Introduction to Honors
H-200
Journey Map
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The journey map is a tool to look at my plan for the remainder of my time as an undergraduate. It also allowed me to look at what I hope to achieve during my undergraduate experience to reach my ultimate goal: Graduate school.
Facing Challenges: FONO
A group project done to observe and provide research supported methods to overcome common challenges associated with the honors experience
This project allowed me to look ahead and consider my future activities and how they relate to my goals. This introspection allowed me to consider the context in which my internships, coursework, and work exist. I was able to use the context to help justify activities and plan others based on how they help me to achieve my long-term goals and aspirations, specifically the main goal of my undergraduate education: graduate school.
Through this process, I was able to plan more efficiently for my future and what engaged learning and extracurricular experiences would fit best in my plan. This process also prompted me to look ahead and plan my future courses. I was able to see valuable recommended courses for a graduate program I want to apply to and add those to my planned courses to ensure that I am the most prepared for graduate school I can be. overall this experience allowed and encouraged me to focus on my goal of graduate school and how best to get there.
This project was an excellent process for considering the challenges that students, especially honors students, face before they affected my ability to thrive academically. By processing the challenge and providing research-based solutions we prepared solutions for common symptoms of the increased workload associated with college and the honor's experience such as burnout, FONO, and mental health. These solutions were compiled in our ePortfolio style presentation tool. The process of building these presentations and observing and commenting on others' presentations allowed me to become aware of and prepared to face these challenges.
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This project was also an excellent way to network with fellow honors scholars. I enjoyed the opportunity to work with and learn from my classmates. The project overall was an excellent icebreaker and allowed me to feel connected and supported by my fellow honors scholars.
Fall 2022
Beginners Ceramics: Handbuilding
HER-C 204
For this contract, I modified a project that was done for class. I built a large ceramic sculpture from an initial egg shape. I utilized multiple skills and methods taught during the class to create a visually interesting piece from both near and far. By adding a variety of textures and glazes I was able to communicate a strong theme of renewal and rebirth from protection.
This contract allowed me to work on my problem-solving and time management skillsets. These skills are very applicable to any career path I undertake. Working with clay is a process during which you must be very conscious of time, clay's moisture level is extremely variable with there being set times when the moisture level is correct and it can be worked with best. I had to use time management to ensure tasks related to building the project could be completed while the clay would allow. Problem-solving was another skill that was involved with this project. I had a vision in my mind of what I wanted and to achieve that in the piece I had to utilize multiple techniques, often it became trying different techniques out to achieve the look I wanted. For example, I had to try different thicknesses of glazes to achieve the specific look was going for, but the glaze wouldn't go on thick enough so I had to let it settle and scrap the side with my finger to collect just the elements of the glaze that created the effect I wanted. Overall my creativity when looking at projects and problems was improved by this experience.
Introduction to Data Studies
LIS-S 201
I worked with a real world dataset in order to develop skills finding, cleaning, analysing, and visualizing data. The project culminated in a paper discussing the experience and the lessons learned from it.
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Data from a SAMSHA survey from 2010 and 2020 were used for the project.
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The Excel File and a PDF of the report can be downloaded below
This project allowed me to build some real skills required to work with data effectively. As I initiated the contract searching through databases looking for data sets I could utilize for this project taught me how to search for and evaluate data. Additionally, once I had located the data cleaning and manipulation were required to prepare the data for use. To clean the data I learned to use and implemented OpenRefine, a program used to clean data, to clean the data along with Excel. While cleaning I also made essential decisions about dirty data and exclusion criteria to ensure the data was ready for analysis.
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During the analysis stage, I utilized Excel's descriptive statistics tools to transform the data from its full size to useable numbers that represented the data. After the analysis was complete the data was visualized using Excel's graphing functions. The data was also used to create infographics that make understanding the findings easy.